


ain't nothing but a four-letter word

by susiecarter



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, First Time, Hand Jobs, Hiding Medical Issues, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Post-Season/Series 03, Scars, Translation Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-20 20:07:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21287453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: Daryl gets hurt.It ain't nothing, really.(Except for some reason, Rick don't seem to see it that way.)
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Rick Grimes
Comments: 28
Kudos: 288
Collections: Multifandom Tropefest 2019





	ain't nothing but a four-letter word

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gaialux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaialux/gifts).

> Your freeform selections were so amazing, I was spoiled for choice—so please enjoy this medley of ignored hurts being noticed and tended to, scars getting seen, pining, and careful first-time sex with virgin!Daryl, gaialux, and I hope you've had a great Tropefest. :D
> 
> Title borrowed from Bon Jovi. This is set in the gap between S3 and S4, and glancingly references some of the events of S3. The canonical physical abuse dealt to Daryl when he was a child is mentioned more than once, but not lingered over or described in detail.
> 
> **ETA:** Now also available in Russian [here](https://ficbook.net/readfic/8803983), thanks to a very kind translator!

Daryl gets hurt.

It ain't nothing, really.

A slice, that's all. Going down along the edge of one shoulder blade, just off to the side of the bone. Deep enough that it probably ought to get stitched, but it turns out to be damn hard to reach even with just one hand. And he don't want to bother Hershel about it, not when there's plenty of others need more tending than that coming out of Woodbury—still hurting after the Walkers got through their walls, or beaten half to death for refusing to join up with the Governor's army when he ordered 'em to.

So Daryl looks after it himself. Don't even really know how he got it. It's not a bite, he knows that for damn sure. He'd have walked out into the woods alone after he noticed it, rather than ever go back inside the prison fence, if it was.

Scratch, maybe. There was a fight just at the edge of the fence, a few days back, and he got shoved back, pinned, for a minute or two. Stray end of that heavy-gauge wire digging into him while he was struggling against it, trying to push that damn Walker off him, while he was busy squirming and straining and kicking—hell, he wouldn't have felt it. Not in a fight like that, even if it had ended up carving a slice out of him.

Point is: he got hurt, but it don't matter none. It'll be fine, long as he leaves it be for a little while. He can still string his bow, load it, if he's careful.

Maybe he tears it back open a couple times. It just won't scab over right, that's all. Too deep for it, and still tender.

Not infected, though. Not yet, anyhow. He knows how that feels, and this, when he does pull it too hard—it's just blood comes out, nothing else.

Damn annoyance, that's all.

Even feels kind of fitting, in a way. He did a dumbass thing, letting a Walker pin him like that, and he got hurt for it. Right where he always used to get hurt for doing dumbass things.

Pa had been dependable that way, if none other. Real consistent.

So it's fine. He's got it handled. Ain't nobody needs to fret about him.

But of course that was never going to stop Rick.

Ain't even supposed to be about Daryl. It's Rick who needs a wash-up.

Big push from Hershel, trying to get them all better about it now there's so many more people, with the Woodbury folks settling in. Be goddamn ridiculous, to survive zombies and then die of the fucking flu just because they ain't bothered to wash their hands on the regular.

And Daryl's been dodging it, telling Hershel he'll do it and then ducking away, splashing some clean water on his face and slapping a little foraged soap on his hands and calling it enough. But Rick ain't, because of course he ain't—because now he's done dancing with the devil, done losing it down in the tombs and still not right even after he came back up, he's taking everything real serious with Carl and Li'l Asskicker. Or—Judith, now, but Daryl still calls her Asskicker sometimes when nobody else is listening.

Anyway, Rick's taking care now to look after himself, and Daryl ain't interested in leaving him to do it alone.

Prison's got showers. Not that there's water coming out of the taps no more, but there's still drains set in the floors and all, so that's where everybody goes to wash.

And when Rick goes, Daryl goes with him.

Just to keep an eye out, is all. Just in case there's a fresh break in the fence they ain't found yet, or some handful of Walkers still hiding down here somewhere. Not likely, but—

But Daryl ain't real fond of letting Rick take risks no more.

And for some reason, Rick don't seem to mind.

He don't say nothing when Daryl follows him—or at least nothing bad. Just asks if he don't mind grabbing another tub of water and bringing it down, too, which he don't.

And he ain't smiling, exactly. Not quite. But there's something soft about his mouth, slanted a little at one side, whenever he looks at Daryl. Like something's funny, in a good way. Like he's happy, maybe.

They get down to the showers. Rick sets one tub down, and Daryl the other, and he's got a cup, too, soap, couple rags, everything.

But he don't get started. Just stands there for a second, looking down at it all, still holding the cup and soap absently in his hands. And then he looks up at Daryl, with those goddamn summer-sky eyes of his.

"I'm okay now," he says quietly. "You know that, right?"

But his mouth's still soft. He ain't pissed to be asking.

"Yeah," Daryl says, quick, anyway. "Yeah, of course. Of course you are. I ain't here because I was worried about that."

Which is true enough. He probably shouldn't've said it like that, though, because it kind of kicks the door open on a whole other question he don't much want to answer: _then why, huh?_

He's got his reasons lined up, sure. Break in the fence. Walkers. He's got things he could say, if Rick did ask.

But he'll think about the things he ain't saying, too. The stupid things, the selfish things. That he ain't leaving Rick alone no more, and it's at least as much for his own damn sake as it is for Rick's.

Because he'd gone, when Merle came around. He'd gone and he'd almost let Rick get ate, only just made it back in time to stop it. He still dreams about it all the time, about if he hadn't—about if he'd been two minutes slower shouting Merle down and turning them around, about if he'd got back in view of the fence just in time to see a Walker gnawing on Rick's steaming guts. God.

Man apparently needed somebody around who was downright sick with attention for him, because it seemed that was the only way to be sure he wouldn't do dumbfuck things like go outside the fence alone.

So it's lucky for him, maybe, that Daryl is.

But Daryl tries not to think about it more than he's got to.

He's got his head on straight about it, these days, this—this thing he's got over Rick. He ain't going to say nothing about it. He don't _want_ to; he still don't have any reason at all, let alone a good one, to think it's anything Rick wants to hear. And even if he did, he don't know how he'd get it out.

It's not that Daryl's afraid. Rick wouldn't beat on him for it or anything, probably. But that ain't much of an upside, and the last thing he wants is to make it sour between them.

And trying to make himself a reason? He wouldn't half know where to even start. He hadn't tried that shit on nobody even before the dead had started rising up to eat people. He'd gotten—hit on, or whatever, a few times. Bought a couple girls some drinks. Gotten maybe half a handjob, once, before he'd gotten himself out of there and finished himself off alone, quick and quiet. As a rule, Daryl'd never much warmed to people, and people had mostly returned him the favor.

He'd never really minded none, neither. He liked the woods better anyway. Hunting alone, crossbow practice, were way the fuck easier than figuring out what the hell people wanted from you and why—more fun, too.

So maybe it's there. That don't mean it matters. He's got the good sense not to sit around making dumb cow eyes at Rick about it. He—feels it, or whatever. Fine. He don't waste time _thinking_ about it. He makes himself useful, like always, and if there's something that makes his face a little hot about the idea of making himself useful to Rick in particular, well, ain't nobody who needs to know it.

It ain't even really about anything queer, he always tells himself. Not like Merle had been thinking, every time he'd prodded Daryl over it. _Your Sheriff Rick_, and _you're like this now, huh_—but he'd just been trying to get a rise out of Daryl. He didn't understand. Because Daryl—Daryl does get leaned on, by Rick, and he likes it. He wants to—be there for Rick, or whatever. Make things easier for him, shoulder some of the weight Rick's always carrying. Trust Rick and be trusted back.

That's all it is. It's fine. And if maybe sometimes that means hanging around to watch Rick's back while he gets bathed, while he strips to the waist to start and splashes water all over himself, till his hands and his shoulders and his goddamn _eyelashes_ are dripping with it, well.

Daryl can handle it. It ain't got to be a problem.

There's an instant's warning, maybe, in the splash of Rick's hand plunging into the water. But Daryl's trying to keep from being stupid, so he ain't looking, and the sudden drenching fall of water takes him clean by surprise.

"Hey!"

Rick's grinning at him, bright and wry and sweet, and fuck, Daryl has got to quit looking at his mouth. "Hundred miles off over there," he says, mild. "Penny for 'em?"

Daryl makes up his face like he's surprised. "What, you got a penny on you?"

Because of course he don't; nobody does. Rick carries more knives on him than pennies, these days, just like everybody else.

Rick laughs, quick. But his face goes kind of still, after. "Couldn't hardly get rid of them before," he says, looking down at the floor, rubbing his wet hand up his bare arm but kind of absently. "Couldn't put them in a meter, couldn't tip with them. Sometimes I stood there counting them out for exact change, and damn everybody else in line, just to use them up."

"And nobody kicked your head in?"

"Badge," Rick reminds him. "Works wonders."

And Daryl'd been half afraid to send him plunging again, making him think about times like that: Lori alive, and Shane, and the world the way it used to be.

But Rick's voice is all warm, and his eyes are clear—and stupid fucking blue, like always, but never mind that. Point is, Daryl ain't ruined it after all.

Which Rick proves in a second by splashing Daryl again.

"You ain't got no badge now, man," Daryl tells him, real pointed, blinking water out of his eyes.

"Yeah?" Rick says, grinning again. "You going to teach me a lesson?"

He uses both hands this time, scoops with them, and Daryl hollers like he's outraged even though he ain't at all and twists out of the way, and that's when it happens.

He can feel it. He ripped it open just the other day, got away before anybody could see it and swiped up the blood till it quit—and he's been trying to be a little more careful with it since, but he forgot. Seeing Rick smiling at him like that, and playing kids' games, he just plumb forgot.

Hard to remember anything hurts, ever has or ever will, when he's looking at Rick like that.

He bites down on a curse, straightens up, but he's already too late. Rick's frowning, already up and stepping over the basins in the drip-splashed jeans he hasn't taken off yet, reaching out for Daryl's elbow, for the hem of Daryl's shirt.

"Jesus, Daryl, you're bleeding. What—"

His wet hand closing on Daryl's arm, warm broad palm, makes something hot in Daryl's gut just like that. And his fingers skimming up under the edge of Daryl's shirt would, too, except shit. Shit—

Daryl ain't going to hit him, and he ain't going to shove him off. But he freezes up, all of him strung up taut, and he practically shouts it when he says, "_Don't_."

Rick goes still. Don't let go of him, but don't move neither.

"Daryl," he says, all low, kind of soft. "Got to be pretty deep, the way it's bleeding."

He ain't wrong, obviously. Daryl can feel it: shirt's sticking down already, blood soaking through. He really tore it wide this time, almost end-to-end.

But he bites down hard on his tongue, and says nothing. Just off the middle of his back like that—Rick'll see, no two ways about it, if he gets Daryl's shirt off. He'll see everything.

"You knew it was there," Rick says slowly after another second, because he ain't stupid. "And nobody's looked at it? Daryl—"

"It ain't that bad," Daryl mutters, and rubs at the corner of his mouth with one thumb, and don't look up. He pulls a little against Rick's grip—not really getting away, not trying to, but just letting Rick know he means it, that Rick ought to let go and leave it alone.

As if Rick's ever been any fucking good at letting things go. Jesus.

"Well, it ain't good," Rick says, mild, a deliberate echo.

His hand's still curled in the crook of Daryl's elbow, and he hasn't eased up any, steady and strong, holding Daryl right where he is.

Not that Rick needs his hands for that.

And the other one moves then, right at the small of Daryl's back—more the cloth shifting against him than anything else, but he still has to bite down on the inside of his cheek to hold back a stupid shudder, Rick's fingertips that close to skin.

"You think I don't know how much time you've spent looking out for me?" Rick asks, after a long moment. "You think I don't know I got a hell of a lot of ground to make up—"

"You don't owe me nothing, man—"

"Will you shut up and let me finish?" Rick says, except his tone ain't angry. Daryl don't rightly know what it is, what to call it. Kind of—warm, maybe. Exasperated, sure. But warm, too. "Look, I don't know what's troubling you, but I trust you. You trust me?"

Daryl swallows. Only one answer to that question; only ever will be one. "Yeah."

And he does, or he'd already be half a mile away. Even Merle had had to rip his fucking shirt off by mistake; otherwise Daryl'd never have let him see. If he _was_ to let anybody look, it would—it would be Rick, probably.

"Look at it this way," Rick adds, gentler still. "You're always helping me with Carl, with Judith. Can't look after them the way you should if you're hurt, can you?"

Daryl shifts his weight a little. Only one answer to that question, too—and they're about as safe now as they've ever been, but still. It would wreck him for good, if he fucked up because of this damn cut, if he was too slow, if he weren't strong enough, and something got at them.

He don't say nothing out loud. But he sucks in a breath, lets it out, and quits leaning away like he was. Moves into Rick's hands instead of away, and waits to see what Rick's going to do about it.

Not like—not like _that_. No fuckin' way anything's going to come of it. This ain't about that at all. Just because his stupid goddamn heart won't stop hammering over Rick's hand on his arm—Rick pushing it up, tugging his shirt along with the other so it'll come up over his head—

Rick's gone quiet. Ain't no power on this earth that could make Daryl look over his shoulder right now; he squeezes his eyes shut instead, bites his lip. What the fuck's he going to do, if Rick starts—starts feeling _sorry_ for him, jesus? Starts thinking he can't look out for himself, or that he ain't fit to? Or—or that he's going to, that he'd do just like he was done to, with Carl or with Asskicker—

"Damn," Rick murmurs, and whistles, low, and touches him.

Not on the big thick diagonal one, the one that's real obvious on first glance, nor the two lower ones, all fat and broken up. Not even the bad patch higher on the shoulder, the ones that criss-cross each other.

Just where he's cut, that's all. Tacky where the blood's already sliding down Daryl's back, and then up a little, careful along the scabbed edge.

He moves away—just for a second, though, just to grab what must be the cup, by the sound of it: dunking it in one of the basins with a slosh, coming back. And then it's both hands at once, jesus. Knuckles of one, stippling their way across the blade of Daryl's shoulder, holding the cup close to trickle some water down, and the other one just—just set there. Just set there, absent, resting, whole wide span of Rick's hand against the bare small of Daryl's back, like it's nothing.

Don't _feel_ like nothing, though. Fuck. Almost too much to get his head around right there, shiver prickling through his skin at it, warmth of Rick at his back like sunshine.

Daryl don't touch people much. And people don't touch Daryl much, neither. Used to want it that way, when the only times it happened was Merle cuffing him around the head and telling him off, or Pa—being Pa. He don't mind it now, getting slaps on the back when he's done good, Li'l Asskicker in his arms or Hershel squeezing his shoulder in passing; pushing people to safety, or getting pulled after them.

But even that ain't like _this_. Just—just keeping on this way, Rick's hands hands hands, shock of cool water down his back like rain and then that warmth, skin on skin, Rick cleaning him up a bit at a time. No rush, no danger, no hurry.

Daryl swallows. His throat's dry, his mouth. Can't hardly breathe. Can't hardly _think_. Rick's saying something to him but he can't hear none of it, can't make it into words; he's shivering outright, now, but Rick must think it's the water, how cool it is, because he ain't stopping, and if he really knew why then he would.

Daryl don't even realize what's happening for a minute, he's so busy just soaking it up. Like his whole life's been one long fucking winter, like Rick's hands on him brung the thaw—and his poor dumb bewildered body don't even know what to do with it.

But the pressure of Rick's hand's gotten firmer, and it ain't because Rick moved. It's because Daryl did. Because Daryl's pressing himself back into that touch, can't hardly help it. But that's a weird thing to do. Ain't it? Rick's going to notice. He's got to stop. Let Rick finish cleaning the wound out, all right, but then he'll move away. Except—Rick'll want to stitch it too, maybe. Bandage it up. After that, though. After that he'll put his bloody shirt back on, he'll get out of reach again where he belongs, and Rick won't do it again, and that's fine.

It don't matter. It don't.

"It's nasty, but it's clean enough, I guess," Rick's murmuring behind him, with another rush of water, a swipe—cup switched quick for one of the rags, Daryl thinks dimly. And then—

And then Rick's hand moves a different way: down there, low, along the edges of the two wide ones. The scars.

Daryl swallows.

"This is probably the wrong thing to say," Rick says, real soft. "But—I'm glad. Not that somebody did this," he adds quick, and then curses a little under his breath. "Jesus. I didn't mean—just that you made it, that's all. That it happened but you made it anyway. It makes me glad to think maybe there's no shit so bad that you won't live through it."

Jesus.

Daryl's already shaking his head before Rick's done saying it. "You don't got to say that, man—"

Rick scoffs, so light and ordinary Daryl's startled, and has to look at him then. And he's looking right back, because of course he is: both eyebrows raised, head tilted a little, gaze frank and steady and far too goddamned blue. "You see anybody in here twisting my arm?" he demands. "Jesus, Daryl. If I wanted to raise your morale or some bullshit, I'd've figured out what to say ahead of time instead of coming off like an idiot."

He stops, then, and swallows so hard Daryl can see his throat move with it.

"God," he mutters, at least half to himself. "I told myself I wasn't going to rush it. I told myself maybe there was time, now that we were all safe, and I could—look, it's okay, all right?"

Daryl blinks at him. "Rick, what—"

"It's okay," Rick repeats. "You can punch me if you want, or—do whatever you got to do, but I—" and then he stops again, bites at his mouth, shakes his head, and then they're—kissing.

He ought to shove Rick off him. He ought to push Rick away and ask him what the fuck he thinks he's doing—what the fuck and also why the fuck. Because if it's just that there's something he wants, down here in the shower room with his shirt off, something he needs and don't want to ask no Woodbury strangers for, and he figures he can ask Daryl instead, then fine. Fine, but there are ways to ask that don't mean he's got to—to do a thing like _this_, and make Daryl think—

But to be honest he don't think of none of that stuff until after it's over. In the moment, he just—he startles for a second, freezes, and then he can't do nothing but clutch at Rick right back, tug him closer; close his eyes and bite at Rick's wet mouth and try not to think in case that's what'll make it end.

And then Rick breaks away, breathing hard, and says, "Daryl—you—?" and Daryl wakes himself the fuck up and gets a goddamn grip.

He's twisted halfway around in Rick's hands, forearm to Rick's—to Rick's bare wet chest, and jesus, this is not helping. "What—what was that for?"

Rick blinks at him, looking startled; Daryl's real careful not to look at his mouth. Don't nobody need that view right now. "What, you mean I was doing it that bad—"

"Don't fuck with me, Rick," Daryl snaps, because Rick in a mood to tease is a glory and a half but _also_ not what he needs right now. "Why'd you do that?"

Rick stays quiet for a moment—and he ain't smiling or nothing, but he don't look angry neither. He has that look like he gets times when—times when he's real intent, a certain light in them eyes of his, everything in him fixing on one thing so hard the rest of the world's fallen away from him.

And then he says, all quiet and careful, "Because I couldn't not do it anymore."

"You—been wanting to?" Daryl says slowly.

"Yeah," Rick says, brass-bold, and then pauses for a second, eyes flicking back and forth over Daryl like he's looking for something. "That matters to you."

He don't say it like a question, but there's something in his face that says he's only just worked that out, that he's figuring it out even as he says it, and Daryl looks away. Ain't no good reason Rick's motives should matter, after all, except if Daryl's afraid of something. Except if the wrong motives are somehow going to hurt.

Shit.

"I mean, I ain't got a problem with it or nothing," he tries, hasty.

And before he can carry on, Rick's drawing him in close again: turning him so they're facing for real, smack of their boots on the wet concrete floor, one arm hooked around Daryl's back and the other hand—

The other hand at his face, now, gentle, skimming all prickly over his uneven stubble.

"Well, good," Rick says, real low, and then fucking kisses him again.

And he ought to say something else, except he can't think what. Except he can't come up with one single goddamn word, with Rick's mouth on him.

He feels covered with Rick, surrounded by him, half drowned in him. After being careful like he's been for so long, not letting himself look at Rick too long or think about any of it too hard, keeping it all closed up tight—it's flooding up, high-water mark long since sunk, pulling him along in the wake of it: Rick's hands, his lips. His _chest_, the whole broad spare width of it against Daryl's, jesus. Acres of him, warm and alive, so Daryl hardly knows what to touch first.

They start out downright harsh with wanting it; Daryl can't catch his breath, can't settle to it, can't do nothing but keep hanging onto Rick everywhere he can reach and pull Rick as close as he can get. But soon they're really out of breath, and Daryl finally breaks away to suck in a lungful and discovers that Rick's mouth is still there after, and that changes it. Rick's still there, and so's Daryl: they ain't took away or vanished somehow, they ain't neither one of them changing their minds.

That makes it so they can slow down a little more—kiss longer, and smoother, and softer; and then Rick shifts even nearer to Daryl and he's _hard_. Which, Daryl is, obviously, but he'd figured on that. Somehow, even with the kissing and all, it still hadn't seemed like Rick could really want this as bad as Daryl.

But his dick's sure trying to convince Daryl he does. Goddamn.

"Jesus," Daryl says unthinkingly, half into Rick's mouth; and Rick snorts and then shifts back far enough to laugh for real.

"And that ain't a crossbow," Rick drawls, shifting his thigh over in a way that makes Daryl half choke. "So I'm guessing you're just as happy to see me."

He's teasing, eyes bright and crinkling at the corners, but damned if it ain't true, the truest fucking thing in the world. Every good glad thing in this life is tied up in Rick Grimes, for Daryl—in him and his kids, in this place he's built and these people he's fought to keep it safe for; in his stupid perfect face, those brilliant eyes, in his hands and his throat and every part of him, his whole self alive and sound and here, right here, with Daryl.

"Yeah," Daryl says, a little too late for it to sound normal even if his voice hadn't come out all cracked and hoarse. "Yeah, I am."

He don't get a chance to pick apart the look on Rick's face at that before Rick's on him again; careful, tender, damn near sweet, until Daryl lets out a breathless sound under it and presses toward him—that makes Rick groan somewhere low in his throat, groan and shove at Daryl right back, and Daryl only has to go a step and a half before he fetches up against the concrete wall.

And flinches, startled, when it fucking hurts.

"Aw, shit," Rick says, wincing with him, hands at his back immediately. "Shit, your shoulder."

"It's fine," Daryl says, and reaches for Rick's belt—but that pulls on the wound too, and Rick's hand's right there, the blood welling up probably right between his knuckles.

"Right," Rick says, dry as dust, and keeps one hand where it is, grabs Daryl by the hips with the other and tugs till Daryl follows him, half-stride together away from the wall. "Cut that out, I mean it. Let me go get a needle from Hershel. Ten minutes. Just give me ten minutes, that's all."

Ten minutes. Ten minutes to think better of whatever's come over him, whatever made him want to put his hands on Daryl—

"Ten minutes," Rick repeats, leaning in again, words a sweet soft murmur against Daryl's jaw. "Let me take care of you for a change, huh?"

As if he ain't done enough, just getting them all this far alive? "You done took care of me ten times over," Daryl tells him, gripping him by the nape of the neck, willing him to hear it. "Don't you know that? Don't you know that?"

Rick's quiet for a second. His eyes've fallen shut. "Not always," he says at last, scraped, hardly over a whisper. "I tried. But—not always."

Because of course he don't know it. Of course all he sees when he looks at it is the parts where he thinks he fucked up.

"Rick—"

"Just let me," Rick says, pressing in again, lips at Daryl's cheek, his ear. "God, I want to make you happy. I want to make you feel good," and his hand's moving again, from Daryl's hip to—to his dick, through his jeans but like hell does that matter, and it feels fucking _fantastic_. Daryl sucks in a breath through his teeth, rolls his hips clumsily into Rick's hand, and fuck, fuck.

Rick gets his jeans open, and god, that's even better. Smooths his hand in long slow strokes over the skin at Daryl's hips—over his ass, too, gripping with his fingers so that Daryl's pretty sure he's got a guess at something else Rick'll want to try pretty soon, and jesus, Daryl's looking forward to letting him.

And then Rick jerks him off, just like that. Holding him like that, away from the wall so his back don't touch it again, and not letting him do nothing; which is maybe for the best, because it feels like Daryl couldn't even if he tried. Couldn't do nothing but hang on for dear fucking life, and gasp into Rick's mouth, and let Rick pull him off.

Ain't words for how it feels, rough-hot friction of Rick's hand against him, reaching through his fly and palming the length of him like that. Makes the world go hazy, nothing in it but Rick, but his hand—because god, it don't feel half this good when Daryl does it to himself, and nobody else ever has.

He lets that slip near the end without even meaning to. Don't know he's doing it, gritting out, "—never, never—oh, fuck—" until Rick huffs a pleased little laugh against his cheek.

"That good, huh?" he murmurs, teasing, mouthing the words in a line up the side of Daryl's throat.

And Daryl hears himself say, "No, I—I never, Rick. Nobody's ever—"

Rick's head comes up, sharp, those blue blue eyes round and full of light, mouth soft and startled, like it's the best fucking thing he's ever heard. And he says quietly, breathlessly, "Jesus, _Daryl_," and kisses Daryl, rubs his thumb right _there_, and Daryl makes a weird noise and shudders and comes all over his wrist.

He figures maybe Rick will want to clean it off. He figures wrong. Rick just stands there and keeps kissing him, fondles him right _through_ it till he's shivering helplessly, and only then eases back a little. Moves his hand off Daryl's back to touch his cheek with it—and then stares at it, because there's blood all over it.

"Goddammit," he says. "I was going to get you that fucking needle first. Jesus, Daryl, I'm sorry—"

Daryl raises his eyebrows, and can't for the fucking life of him stop grinning, even though it feels like his knees are about to buckle out from under him. "Rick," he says, "man, I can promise you right now: I ain't going to hold it against you."

And Rick looks at him and smiles, then, real slow, brightening his whole face like dawn till it almost hurts to look at. "Well, if you're sure," he says, and then leans in and kisses Daryl again.

(It's another five minutes or so till he actually leaves for that needle; but this time he don't let Daryl distract him. Much.)


End file.
